Cliff Westfall writes songs about heartache, loss, addiction, pain… You know, funny songs. Consider this plea, from a character who lost more than just a drug habit when he went into rehab: "No more Jacks and no more Jills/We go together just like booze and pills/So let's fall off the wagon once again." Or this from a man willing to accept just about anything to hold onto his beloved: "You can cuss my favorite uncle/I'll take that on the chin/Stay out all night and tell me that your grandma died again/I'll play the fool."

Brooklyn alt-country band Karen & the Sorrows “write loss and heartbreak, and goddamn are they good at it.” (F*** Yeah, Queer Music) Their second full-length album, The Narrow Place, will be released this summer on August 25th. Bust Magazine called their debut album, The Names of Things, full of “haunting pedal steel work and unvarnished heartbreak,” and it was voted one of the Freeform American Roots Chart’s best debut albums of 2014. New York Music Daily writes, “Country keeps evolving and Karen & the Sorrows are taking it to a place it’s never been before, a good and creepy one.” Queer country pioneers, The Sorrows co-founded the Gay Ole Opry, the first ever queer country music festival, and host the popular Queer Country Quarterly, helping to build new community for people who love country music even if country music doesn’t always love them back.